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Sunday, September 9, 2012

Taking Hyad to his first LFR Dragon Soul

Gearing Hyad up to me was for one reason only - I wanted him to see the Dragon Soul encounter on raid finder so he could at least see the cut scenes and get a feel for the bosses. So we ran a few heroics, bought some items, and he managed to scrape in at minimum gear level.

Last night I was having a great round of PvP with Shab and Sev, and I promised Hyad I would take him to Dragon Soul. So I left my buddies and partied up with him and asked Lushnek (who was on his paladin hanging out with Dragonray and her hubby Lom) to come. Sev asked if we needed help, so he came along as well, and Shab said he would like to try out his talents since he hadn't raided since patch and said he'd come too. Moopie, had been really grouchy because he had serial awful LFR groups which he'd had to leave because if you haven't been to LFR lately, since patch it's become an awful place. I hadn't been, I had only heard stories from guildies.

Then Dragonray and Lom came, with Dragon on her priest who had just managed to scrape in by gear level as well! So we had a group of 8 people going for LFR - safety in numbers, right? It was lovely that everyone decided to go along and hopefully we could keep some of the troll numbers down. We all got on Vent so we could chat easier and also explain the fights to Hyad.

A few queue false starts (DPS not ready etc) and then we got in, and we started on trash. Then someone started pulling the side mobs and we wiped. I thought I saw a bear charging out there, but I could have been wrong.

"It was a hunter pet," said Lushnek. "I saw it heading out.""Whose pet was it?" I asked.

"Didn't see."

We zoned in and started again, and sure enough, there went the pet again. I saw a dead cat this time, and I moused over whoever's dead pet it was and right clicked the hunter who owned it to vote to kick. As soon as I had done that though, I regretted it. I should have asked if they knew how to play first, and not been hasty. I wrote in raid chat "Hunters, please control your pets!" and then everyone piped up the same. I noticed Teddy running off again, and I whispered his owner "Control your pet. It's wiping the raid. Please put it on passive."

He whispered back. "Sorry, he's new. I only got him today."

Ok, fair enough. But we wiped again on trash. Teddy was still running out to the side, pulling all the mobs.

Everyone zoned in again and started laying into the hunters. The hunter who WASN'T sending his pet out objected to everyone pointing fingers at hunters in general. But the hunter who owned Teddy said exactly what he'd said to me. We told them to dismiss their pets if they couldn't control them. So we were just replacing those who had left the raid in frustration and then Teddy was running straight for the boss. The vote to kick was going through and it was successful just before Teddy reached the boss, and the hunter disappeared from group. I'm not sure if that hunter was just a new player or what, but surely, that kind of continuing to be silly with that many mistakes could not be an accident.

Then on to Morchok. And... WOW. That stomp really hurt! I looked around and there seemed to be a decent amount of people in range, but the damage seemed worse than normal 25 man! People died, even though a fair few of us had the mechanics right - and thank god nobody was pulling the mobs from the side. We wiped twice on Morchok, and I tried to ask everyone, even ranged to stand a bit closer for the stomp.

We finally got it, and I then I got this bag in my bags. What was this bag? Where was the loot? Ohhh this was the NEW LFR rules, and looting, which was interesting. LOL what was more interesting was my struggle to understand the new looting system.

Navi: What's this bag?

Lush: It's the new LFR loot. You get gold if you don't get any loot.

Navi: So where's the loot?

Lush: You either get gold or loot. If you don't get loot you get the 25 gold.

Navi: So, there's no more loot?

Lush: There is, it's just random now.

Navi: So how do I get some?

Lush: I just told you, it's random now.

Dragonray: Ok Navi, let me explain. You ready?

Navi: Yep.

Dragonray: The new changes randomly allocate loot to someone in the raid. We all get a bag. Some of us will get loot. Some of us will get gold.

Navi: So does the looting system know if I'm rolling on something and I've got something better so it won't give it to me?

Dragonray: No. It's random.

Navi: Can I win plate stuff?

Dragonray: No, just stuff you can use. Resto druid stuff. Or I guess, caster druid stuff.

Navi: And I can't trade it to anyone?

Dragonray: No, you can't.

Navi: Wow, so no more coming with your friends and giving them stuff.

Dragonray: Nope.

Lom: Damn, I needed more maelstroms. They're worth more than 25 gold.

Navi: Lom!

(collective laughter)

Ok, so new loot rules! I guess this is more fair, but it's a shame it can't be traded. At least this stops the nasty people being spiteful - this way is just absolutely fair, but I guess trying to decide who needs it is too much for the random loot system. I can cope with this way, though.

The rest of the run went relatively smoothly. No more wipes, and I had fun playing with the ball in Zon'ozz bouncing it around. We explained the basics of all the fights to Hyad, and it was rather fun to be doing Yor'sahj with just 2 blobs up. He wondered how we knew which blob to kill, but we have done it so often, it's pretty much purple all the time and then yellow usually. On the last blob phase all 3 made it to the boss, but we just burned the boss.

We completed that, and then Shab and Moo left to go to bed. We queued for the second half and that wasn't quite as successful. All the groups were already partially done, and we ended up taking one fo the half finished ones, coming in on Spine. That went smoothly, but Madness was another thing. The tanks died a lot, probably not taunting from each other and using their cooldowns, and then people were dpsing the wrong tentacle and made blistery things spawn and that hurt a lot and we died. Multiple times. We had about 4 attempts and then called it a day. Perhaps we can take Hyad another time, like Tuesday or Wednesday.

The resto shaman, Rediamond, who was there was healing like a trooper. Kicked my ass! And he was really patient too, not yelling at everyone or being an elitist jerk. I went over to his server to say that he did a great job and thanks for being so patient, and he thanked me for my compliment. LOL everyone thought I was making a Navispam toon, but I was just being friendly LOL~

Hyad at least got to see two cinematics - parachuting off the ship to Deathwing's back and then seeing Thrall shoot Deathwing with the Dragon Soul after we peeled off his spine plates. He seemed happy to see that at least.

So that was LFR. Wow, it was an adventure. But the opportunity to play with my friends in a group, was worth all that pain, I think!

10 comments:

LFR has indeed become a nightmare after the patch hit. With the taking away of loot drama problems, there seems to be a flood of people griefing mechanics (kill all the corruptions on Spine, etc) and just a bunch of angry people.

I hope Hyad had fun, though. Good that he can catch these last cinematics before the next expansion comes along soon! :)

I don't quite get that hunter's excuse. A pet being new has NOTHING to do with it running off like that. They way Blizz has nerfed pet care/control over the years prevents this. There is no more "aggressive" stance for pets, so pets can't randomly pick a mob and go eat it. The ONLY way they run off now is if we command them to do so. Sorry, he was griefing.